Note:
this page supplements two earlier elaboratons
of the Beta-2.
Here I only focus on how to use the free Foxit pdf reader to easily navigate
the Megamap pdf at its humongous size of over 9,000 square feet. Even I,
the map's designer, tended to get lost in transit when trying to roam the
Megamap at its full original scale of 1/1 million. But the Foxit pdf reader
solves that problem, and makes it a breeze to instantly relocate to any sector,
zooming in and out, and panning smoothly in any chosen direction. (My previous
discussion of Foxit was less detailed, and did not include screenshots, nor
the importance of using "Fit Page" and "Marquee" in tandem.)

The gleam in my eye has been a full-size hard copy in a gym or plaza, 40 m
x 20 m (132' x 69'), but meanwhile you can easily view this free 35 MB pdf file at full size on
your own PC, via the free Foxit pdf reader.
(For Windows or Linux; Mac users must find an equivalent.)

Heretofore, the Megamap's original vector Draw file (odg) from Apache OpenOffice could vary the size
and scale, but was much too slow and klutzy and crash-prone to be useful.
Exporting the odg to a pdf file made for nice sharp printouts and more streamlined
viewing. But Adobe's Acrobat is also too slow to be worthwhile — after every
move, it spends time re-drawing the entire map. The Chrome browser does a
faster rendering, but spoils the image beyond 67%.

However, I recently discovered that Foxit is far more flexible and faster
than Adobe or Chrome; and can almost instantly portray the map at its full
size, or smaller scales. Its panning function enables speedy dragging of
the map to any region; its marquee function enables you to select and enlarge
any given frame; and its "Zoom To" function lets you choose a large or small
percent at which to see the map.

Caveats: The smallest zooming-out
size is 8.33%, which is still a big chunk of the map. However, the "Fit Page"
size is 1%; see below. Also, the initial loading, and "Fit Page", each take about 10 seconds on my low-end
Acer Windows 7 laptop. Every other move of the map is nearly instantaneous.

There is a Foxit mobile version for Android, but with nowhere
near the functionality described below. I'd love to do finger-touch re-sizing,
but on an Asus MeMO tablet with Foxit MobilePDF, finger-spreading could only
enlarge the Fit Page map a little, making it badly pixelated. It could not
read the full-size version at all; and took 2 1/2 minutes to load the file,
vs. 10 seconds in my Acer, as mentioned above.

Note: you should "save link as", and then open it with the Foxit pdf reader.If you merely click the link in a Chrome
browser, it will open directly there at 10%, but can only enlarge to 67%
before ruining the image. Other browsers may try to use Adobe as a helper
app, which is no good. So be sure to "save link as", instead of directly clicking it.

The most important knack for scouting the full-size Megamap in Foxit pdf reader is first to use "Fit Page", then proceed to enlarge from there (and return to "Fit Page" whenever helpful).

The "Fit Page" command can be done in any of three ways:

Ctrl 0; or

Clicking the "Fit Page" icon under the "HOME" or "VIEW" tabs; or

At the status bar on the bottom left of the screen, there is
a window with an arrow, and a percent reading. Click the arrow, and choose
"Fit Page" (or any other desired percentage, discussed below.)

These are Foxit's four most useful functions to maneuver the Megamap:

Ctrl 0

Fit page

(See above.)

Alt 3

Hand

For
panning; more efficient than scrolling. Be sure to re-select the Hand, after
using Marquee. (Hand icon also available under HOME and VIEW tabs.)

Alt 5

Marquee

To select frame for instant enlargement. (Its icon also available under VIEW tab.)

Ctrl M

Zoom To

Name
your own smaller or larger percent destination. (Its entry-box also available
under HOME tab, or click status bar arrow at lower left.)

Note:
Before opening the Megamap, but after launching Foxit for the first time,
you should go to "Preferences" in the FILE tab at the far left, and do this:

Go
to "General", and at the bottom of its window, "Application Startup", uncheck
"Show Start Page" and "Show Advertisement". These add extra tabs which eat
up map space.

Go to "Page Display", then "Magnification":
At "Default Zoom", choose "Fit Page"; because if your Default Zoom happens
to be "Actual Size", all you will see at the start is 2 sq. ft. of the 9,000 sq.ft. Megamap: some empty space and a big yellow sign We do not want
"Actual Size" just yet.

Next you can open the Megamap in Foxit. In about 10 seconds the file will
appear. If your Default Zoom is "Fit Page" you will see the entire map. But
if it is "Actual Size", here is what you get: less than the tip of the iceberg:

Top left corner of 9,000 square-foot Cahill-Keyes Megamap Beta-2, seen at 100% in Foxit pdf reader.Note: each grey square in the Megamap represents 200 km.

And when you try to pan or scroll at this point, you could soon get frustrated because
of the huge distances involved. Therefore, you should go to "Fit Page", i.e.,
Ctrl 0, or the icon under "HOME", as explained above, and in 10 more seconds,
you will see the entire world map, reduced to 1% of its actual size!
(Preferably, you already opened it that way.) In "Fit Page" the map may
be ca. 36 cm (or ca. 14") wide, plus or minus, depending on your screen size.
Its new scale is 1/100 million; i.e., 100 times smaller than the full Megamap
or its pdf.) That big yellow sign becomes a barely-visible speck at the
top left corner. Remember that the Megamapis drawn at 1/1 million in high resolution to start
with, then reduced by users' choices.It is not some smaller map blown up to that size.

Technical footnote: But at 1%, the map should
in fact be 40 cm long, not 36 cm, as on my 17.3" laptop display. In general,
at any scale, my Acer PC screen shows all these Megamap sizes at 9/10 of
their "real" size (just as my 4 GB flash drives contain only 3.6 GB . . . ) I can live with that, as part of the fuzzy math
of monitors. And I can also up the percent a little, as mentioned below.
(When it comes to printing a pdf, however, the hard copy gets the size right. Screen display: not quite.)

Cahill-Keyes Multi-Scale Megamap in Foxit pdf reader, reduced to 1% of its full size.

The partial screenshot below shows Foxit's HOME tab,
open to show two of the most important icons for navigating the Megamap:
"Hand" and "Fit Page". As well, "Zoom To" is activated by typing a percentage
in the box near the center. (Click HOME again to hide all that, leaving more
room for the map.)

Or, instead, you can use Ctrl 0 for "Fit Page", Alt 3 for "Hand", and Ctrl M for "Zoom To".

The other useful Foxit tab is VIEW, which has
"Hand", again (at left), and the "Marquee" icon (at center) to select a part
of the map for instant enlargement.

Or, instead, you can type Alt 5 for Marquee, and Alt 3 for Hand. (But remember
to re-select "Hand" if you wish to pan after you have used "Marquee", or
you will get another Marquee you didn't want.)

At
the bottom left of the Foxit window is the status bar, showing whatever percentage
the image is. Clicking its small arrow is another way to access the sizing
commands. (One can also click those + or - symbols there, but they give irregular
percentages. I prefer to choose my own "Zoom To" values, by clicking Ctrl
M, and entering them..)

In
this example, I am going to use "Marquee" to zoom in on Crimea. After clicking
Alt 5; a "+" sign inside a tiny magnifying glass will appear. Right click
and hold the mouse button, then drag the "+" to make a frame from an upper to
a lower corner of a small area inside the map: say, around Europe, enclosing
the Black Sea, and Crimea. It will instantly enlarge to the map's "smallest"
default size in Foxit, which is 8.33%. (I omit the whole-map image with the
marquee, because the frame was not very conspicuous in the screen grab. Instead,
below is the result.)

Voilà;
the Black Sea and vicinity instantly appear. Foxit's default is 8.33%, but
I preferred 10%, which would be as if an out-take from a large wall map of 1/10
million (4 m x 2 m, or 13' x 6.5'). So here I have also used "Zoom To" (Ctrl
M), and then changed 8.33% to 10%. I also switched back to panning ("Hand", or
Alt 3), to drag Crimea toward the center of the map.

Technical footnote: at 1/10 million, the red grid squares should be 10 cm long, but due to the fuzzy math I mentioned, they are only 9 cm long on my monitor. So if I really
want to see the correct map scale and grid square size, I'd zoom to 11%,
not 10%. I'm a stickler for getting scales right, but not knowing your monitor's size or resolution, I'll leave it at 10%, which in principle is the desired progression.

Coming closer, we "Zoom To" 20%, doubling the scale to 1/5 million. Notice percent readout at bottom left of all maps.

Closing in: we now "Zoom To" 50% , or 1/2 million, half the scale of the Megamap itself.
Notice at every scale how the geocells (one degree of latitude and longitude)
are all proportional to one another. This is one of the paramount design
features of the Cahill-Keyes world map, not seen in any other single world
map (not even Cahill's).

Finally,
we "Zoom To" 100%: this is Crimea at the full scale of the Megamap, 1/1,000,000.
From this point, one can safely pan around the vicinity without getting lost.
Or, zoom out at Foxit's preset clicks ("-"), and take in greater areas. Or
"Zoom To" whatever smaller percentage one chooses. Or go to "Fit Page", then
Marquee another part of the earth, and close in.

There is an alternate mechanism in Foxit called
"Loupe", which provides an inset frame giving a variably enlarged view of
the main map. Its icon is in the VIEW tab; no separate key combination. So
far I have found it more complicated to use: not quite intuitive, and its
percent numbers not in sync with the principle image. If the interface were
improved, this could be a valuable additional way of traversing the Megamap.

To
summarize: With the Foxit pdf reader, a full-size, 9,000 square foot Megamap
pdf can be easily navigated in its entire extent: enlarging from 1% to 100%,
and panning at will: thereby demonstrating how the Cahill-Keyes Multi-scale
Megamap is all the same map whatever its size, and how all its lands can
be readily viewed at 1/1,000,000 — showing their high-resolution coastlines
and borders — or at smaller scales. Cahill-Keyes is the world's only unitary
world map, with good fidelity to a globe, always at a one-degree resolution,
and with its geocells all proportional to one another.